Unfriended
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: When one of Gray and Natsu's fights takes a serious turn, both of them end up crossing the line. But Natsu really says something that threatens to destroy whatever bond they have, and it's up to him to convince Gray that their friendship was never a lie and is still worth saving.


**Note: Yeah, the title seems a little glib, but I'm a big fan of the whole tongue-in-cheek thing lol This was sort of a spur-of-the-moment rush job because I was in a hurry to get back to all my other projects, so I didn't do as much with it as I could have.**

* * *

Most of Gray and Natsu's fights weren't really serious. Oh, there were definitely times when they annoyed each other or got pretty mad while they were throwing fists and insults back and forth, but they were almost never serious enough to want to do any real damage to the other person. The rare occasions when they _were_ angry enough to cross lines were always disastrous.

This particular fight had started as a result of a common complaint: Natsu's recklessness. It had been the first time Gray and Natsu had gone out on a job without the rest of the team in months, and had been required by Erza as a 'bonding experience' after their fighting had destroyed a small town and lost the team their reward money once again. Why she thought that this, or anything else, for that matter, might stop the wanton destruction and perpetual dearth of reward money was unclear, but no one had enough of a death wish to ask her. Any halfhearted complaints were quickly shut down by means that were perhaps more violent than necessary, and the boys had resigned themselves to their punishment. Since neither wanted to be stuck on a boring job, they'd found one involving a potentially dangerous dark guild and set off, bickering cheerfully the entire way.

The dark guild had turned out to be far more dangerous than either had expected, and after a hard fight, Natsu had managed to end things by taking a risky gamble that could have gotten himself, Gray, and half the townspeople killed if it hadn't worked out exactly right. Seeing as things had worked out exactly right, Natsu didn't see what the big deal was. Sure, he'd realized later that there had been better ways to go about things that would have had much higher chances of success and wouldn't have put the mages and civilians in as much danger, if only he'd bothered to think everything through before jumping into action. Oops. But still, things had gone okay, the dark guild had been wiped out, and he and Gray had even gotten to keep all their reward money this time. Why bother dwelling on the past?

Gray, on the other hand, couldn't seem to let it go. As soon as they'd gotten out of earshot of the grateful townspeople, he'd immediately started tearing into the dragon slayer. Regardless of whether or not Natsu actually deserved some of that lecture, he quickly got tired of it, and things had rapidly escalated to the point where both of them were spitting mad.

"Why the hell are you still going on about this?" Natsu snapped, kicking angrily at a rock as he walked.

"Because you don't _get_ it!" Gray snarled back, eyes flashing as he stared down his rival. "You never think before you do things. You almost got yourself killed! You almost got a lot of innocent people killed! And it could have all been avoided if you'd just taken a second to consider the fact that we already had the perfect setup to take that bastard out, none of your idiotic heroics required."

"Yes, yes, we've already been over this," Natsu said impatiently. He got the point—he just wished that Gray would drop it already. "I wasn't thinking and did something stupid. But seriously, chill out. It worked out and no one got hurt."

"Sheer luck! What happens next time you don't think and you try something like this again?"

"I'll be more careful. Happy?"

"No." Gray stopped suddenly, although his glower didn't waver. Natsu paused as well and scowled back. "The problem is that you _won't_ be more careful. You never learn. Your stupidity has almost gotten you killed dozens of times. And that's not going to change, because you always just brush it off afterwards like it's not a big deal, and go right ahead and do the same exact thing next time.

"One of these days it's going to catch up to you. If you get yourself killed, that's game over. And what if your reckless actions accidentally get someone else killed? How would you live with that on your conscience?"

Natsu growled low in the back of his throat, long past the point of being willing to admit to any grain of truth in his opponent's arguments. The fact was that this issue should already be over and done with, except that Gray wouldn't let it go. And Natsu really, really resented the insinuation that he was going to end up killing someone.

"Well, I suppose you'd know, wouldn't you?" he retorted automatically, before he really realized what he was saying. "Why are we even talking about me? So far _my_ reckless actions haven't gotten anyone killed. Can you say the same?"

The world seemed to grind to a halt. Gray froze, mouth half open, and gaped at Natsu silently, hurt and betrayal flickering in his eyes. The words finally registered in Natsu's brain, and he was just as shocked as his friend that he'd dared utter them. _Fuck_. All of his anger instantly vanished, as if he'd been doused by cold water. No matter how annoying Gray was or how annoyed Natsu was, that had been completely out of line.

Gray and Natsu had spent enough time testing the boundaries over the years that they knew which buttons they should _never_ press. They'd throw insults about almost anything under the sun, but they knew when they'd gone too far. Natsu knew exactly how sensitive a subject Ur was. He knew that Gray always disappeared on the anniversary of her death each year, that he'd never quite forgiven himself, that the guilt still ate away at him if he ever looked at it too closely.

Natsu opened his mouth because, for possibly the first time in his life, he felt the pressing need to apologize for something said in the heat of an argument, but Gray beat him to the punch. Time unfroze as he finally started breathing again, cold fury replacing the pain and shock in his eyes.

"At least she didn't find me so unbearable that she abandoned me," Gray hissed, hands curling into fists at his sides.

Natsu gaped at him for about five seconds, and then all the anger came rushing back in, burying any remorse he might have felt about his earlier words. Gray had _no right_ to talk about Igneel like that. Natsu couldn't believe he'd actually been planning to apologize to this asshole.

"Shut up!" He took a threatening step towards Gray, although he didn't make a move to strike yet. "He didn't abandon me!"

"Oh really?" Gray sneered, eyes bright with contempt. "Where is he now, then? Maybe he just got fed up with you being an insufferable jerk and left."

Gray was _wrong_. Natsu didn't know what had happened to Igneel, didn't know why his father had left, but there had to be a reason. Igneel had loved Natsu as much as Natsu had loved him, and Gray had no right to suggest otherwise. Natsu would make him pay for that. He'd rip him to shreds, tear into every weak point he had until he broke. Oh, Natsu could throw punches and break bones and grind Gray into the ground, but he'd long since learned that nothing physical could hurt his rival nearly as much as a handful of cruel words could.

" _Me_ an insufferable jerk?" he scoffed. "Why don't you take a look in the mirror? Surely you remember exactly what an unlovable freak you were as a kid. No one could even stand you. If anyone deserved to be abandoned for being a cold, heartless bastard, it was _you_."

Gray's glower deepened. "At least _I_ grew out of it."

Natsu threw his head back and laughed, the sound harsh and grating and not at all amused. He chose to ignore the insult altogether, because he'd found a better way to twist the knife in Gray's gut.

"Grew out of it?" he repeated incredulously. "You've never grown out of it. You're still an arrogant asshole who's always getting on everyone's nerves. Everyone knows it, but no one wants to say it to your face."

For an instant, a shadow flickered over Gray's face. But it was gone again so quickly that Natsu might have imagined it.

"I don't think you have the right to speak for everyone else," he said coldly, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you think that you're going to make me paranoid about my place in the guild then you're even stupider than you look. Don't talk about things you don't understand. You can speak for yourself, but don't put words into other peoples' mouths."

"Fine, ignore it if it makes you feel better. Speaking for myself, I can tell you that I think you're annoying and mean and not terribly likable. I honestly can't believe I've managed to put up with you for so long. Goodness knows it hasn't been easy, dealing with you all these years."

"So…what?" Gray asked, rolling his eyes. "You're saying that our entire friendship has been a lie and you've just been pretending to be my friend all these years?"

Normally Natsu might have balked at actually agreeing to a statement like that because, no matter how angry he was, he was still wary of saying something he couldn't take back, but Gray's mocking tone chafed at him.

"Something like that," he snarled.

Now it was Gray's turn to laugh, bitter and unamused. "Yeah right. You're too simpleminded and naïve to have been able to pull off a deception like that. You couldn't do it for a day, much less for years."

"Oh yeah? Do I have to spell it out for you? You're insufferable and cold and conceited and you drive me crazy. It's kind of unfair to expect me to be your friend when you make such a bad one. I've always found you really annoying and–and–"

Natsu paused to come up with something equally biting to tack onto the end. Gray arched an eyebrow contemptuously, a scornful half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, and it made Natsu angry enough that he saw red and said something that he would have never said under normal circumstances.

"And I hate you."

The words hung heavily in the air, and although half of Natsu was viciously satisfied at finding the nerve to say them, the other half was horrified and wanted to snatch them back because those were words that could never be unsaid. Gray stared at him silently, and Natsu had both the satisfaction and horror of seeing something threaten to shatter behind his eyes. His knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists, and for a moment Natsu thought there would be some punches thrown after all. But the thinly veiled hurt in Gray's eyes was quickly eclipsed by that cold anger again, something tight and strained and ready to snap at any second.

"Fine," Gray said icily, raking over Natsu with a disdainful gaze before turning away. "Have it your way."

He stalked off, never slowing or taking a backwards glance. Natsu stared after him, stunned that he would just leave in the middle of an argument like that. Leaving was tantamount to admitting defeat, and Gray would never let Natsu have the last word like that. Natsu had been prepared for physical aggression or hurtful words, but not for this. He wondered exactly how furious Gray was that he couldn't even stand to deal with him anymore.

Then he shrugged it off. Well, whatever the case, he'd won this fight and it was satisfying. Gray had really just gotten what he deserved. After all, he was the one who had started the whole thing, and he'd badmouthed Igneel. Oh, he'd deserved everything coming to him.

And since Gray was apparently running off on his own and there was no longer any obligation to stick with him, Natsu could walk all the way back to Magnolia instead of braving the train. Normally Gray wouldn't stand for walking so far when a train was available, but the stupid bastard wasn't here, was he? So Natsu set off, half smug at having won and half furious because the anger from the confrontation was taking a long time to dissipate.

Walking was great, but it did have one downside, namely that it gave him time to think. Natsu wasn't really big on thinking to start with, but it was kind of hard not to think about anything while stuck trekking through the countryside for hours while bored out of his mind. On trains he was usually too sick and out of it to actually form any kind of coherent thought, but he didn't have that excuse now.

And although he was still angry, he was starting to have some niggling doubts. Which he was trying really hard to erase by rationalizing them away, except that it seemed to be having the opposite effect.

Gray had totally started the argument. On the other hand, he'd been upset for a legitimate reason. But seriously, he'd kept pushing it way too far instead of letting it go. Although it was also true that it had still been more in line with their normal minor arguments, until Natsu had gotten so fed up that he'd blurted out something entirely inappropriate. But Gray really had deserved everything coming to him, because he'd dared say that Igneel had abandoned Natsu. Although, to be fair, he never would have said that if Natsu hadn't brought up Ur first. Still, it had crossed the line so Natsu was justified in escalating the fight. Except that things had gone way too far and he had been aiming to seriously wound, throwing out vicious lies and personal attacks. But in the end Natsu had won, so what did all the rest of it matter? Except that he had won by hurting Gray, because surely his friend hadn't walked away solely because he was angry.

The thoughts kept running round and round his head until they started driving him crazy. He wasn't sure if he should be self-righteously angry or horrified by what he'd said and done. He felt both ways, actually, and that was almost worse. If he felt all angry or all remorseful then at least he'd understand what he was feeling and how to handle the situation. But whatever he was feeling was a strange mixture of both, and he was torn between wanting to rip Gray's head off and needing to apologize and make things up to him. It was a perfectly horrid state of affairs.

In the few hours it took to reach Magnolia, Natsu's anger had started to fade a bit. He was still mad because Gray had said some pretty horrible things too, but he was starting to worry that maybe he'd done some real damage to their friendship. Gray had just _walked away_. That wasn't normal. And so many lines had been crossed…

Natsu paused in the street, halfway between his house and the guild. There were still a couple hours of daylight left, and usually he'd at least drop by the guild to say hi and let everyone know that he was back. But then they'd ask how the job went, and he didn't really want to have to answer that right now. And even more importantly, he didn't want to risk running into Gray yet.

Natsu turned homeward. He would have to face the music at some point, but not right now, when his emotions were still such a jumbled mess. And anyway, it was probably better to give Gray the rest of the day before trying to figure out how much damage had been done. Both of the boys could use some time to cool off and calm down before facing each other again.

So Natsu trudged home wearily, still puzzling over how much would go back to normal on its own tomorrow and how much really needed to be fixed. Maybe it would just be like any other fight and they'd brush it off the next day like nothing had happened. Then again, remembering the look on Gray's face, maybe not. Well, Natsu would take stock of the situation tomorrow. Until then, there wasn't any point in worrying about something that he couldn't do anything about.

Still, it wouldn't let him go and he spent what felt like hours pacing moodily around his empty house, not even bothering to turn the lights on. He went back and analyzed every word and expression from the fight, and by the time Happy finally flew in the door right as the sun was setting, he was no closer to untangling the mess.

"Natsu!" Happy blurted out in surprise, stopping short. "You're back?"

Natsu hummed noncommittally and continued to frown at the floor. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you come to the guild?"

He shrugged. "I'll go back tomorrow."

"Are you okay?" Happy peered at his friend in concern. "You're acting funny."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Natsu stopped his restless pacing and gave Happy some semblance of a smile to convince him that everything was fine.

The Exceed still looked suspicious, but dropped the subject. "So… How did your job go?"

"Eh. It went," Natsu mumbled, turning away. "Hey, are you hungry? I'm starved. I'm going to go see what we've got in the kitchen."

He spent the rest of the night not-so-skillfully evading any direct questions about the job or Gray or how their 'bonding experience' had gone. Ha. 'Bonding experience'. Damn it all.

The next morning, Natsu found a plethora of chores that needed to be done and things that needed to be taken care of, until Happy finally got exasperated and asked why he was worrying about washing dishes _now_ , when he'd never once done it willingly before. Natsu gave up and headed for the guild reluctantly, a frowning Happy hovering by his side. He could've used some more time to work at unraveling that knot of anger and hurt and remorse, but he couldn't put this off forever.

Pausing outside the door for a second to take a shaky breath and steel himself, he grimly pushed his way into the guild and looked around, his eyes darting from face to face as he searched for Gray. The ice mage wasn't there, and Natsu's shoulders slumped in a mixture of crushing relief and worried disappointment. Well, there was nothing he could do until Gray showed up, so he went to sit with Lucy and Erza instead.

The girls looked up as he and Happy approached, and instantly donned identical frowns as they noticed him.

"What, exactly, happened on your job with Gray?" Erza demanded, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Natsu blinked at her, caught off guard. He'd expected some surprise at the fact that he was back from his job already, maybe even questions about why he hadn't stopped by the guild yesterday. He wasn't sure what exactly to make of this though, because something in Erza's voice and Lucy's eyes suggested that they knew or suspected more than they should.

"Uh, well, we finished it?" he offered weakly, his gaze sliding off to the side as he found himself unable to meet Erza's eyes. He laughed nervously. "We actually got to keep the reward money, believe it or not."

"And did something else happen?" Erza asked impatiently. "Gray wouldn't say, but he didn't look happy."

Natsu's head snapped up and he stared at the requip mage, wide-eyed. "Gray? He was here?"

"He came in late last night, a couple hours after Happy left," Lucy replied, her frown deepening. "He only stayed for a few minutes to chat, and then grabbed a handful of job requests and left again."

Natsu swallowed hard. "How did he seem, mood-wise?"

Suspicion flared in Lucy's eyes. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Just… How was he acting?" Natsu asked, shifting uncomfortably as he dropped his gaze again.

There were several long seconds of silence as Happy and the girls regarded him warily. He could practically feel their gazes burning holes into his skull.

"Mostly he was acting pretty normal on the surface," Erza said finally, her voice flat. "But he wouldn't say anything about the job, he kept looking around like he was worried you'd walk in any minute, and he grabbed enough job requests to keep him busy for a week before getting out of here as quickly as he could. And I don't know if he was angry or upset or what, but something wasn't right."

"Oh." Natsu scuffed his foot on the ground, suddenly fascinated by the cracks in the floor.

"For the love of… _One of you will give me a straight answer_ ," Erza hissed. "What happened?"

Natsu sighed heavily. "We might've gotten in a fight," he mumbled.

"…And? You fight all the time," Happy said.

"Yeah, but not like this."

"You were _supposed_ to be getting along." Erza leaned back and glowered at him. "How bad did it get?"

Natsu shrugged. "Bad enough," he said vaguely. "Well, I'll figure things out when he gets back. Don't worry about it."

"You'd better," Erza said firmly, giving him a disapproving look. "Whatever mess you two have made had better get cleaned up. Although you might have to wait a bit. With how many jobs he took, I wouldn't be surprised if he was gone for a while."

"Yeah…" Not wanting to talk about this anymore or get into the details, Natsu hurriedly steered the conversation to other topics and steadfastly refused to be tricked into revealing anything else, despite the occasional probing question.

He stayed pretty subdued and distracted as he worried over everything the girls had told him. Gray was obviously still really upset if he was going to such lengths to avoid Natsu, and he could hold a grudge a lot longer than the dragon slayer could. And even worse, he didn't usually make excuses and run off on jobs when he was angry. He did that when he was unhappy or hurting. Natsu tried to push that knowledge out of his head, because it was ugly and he didn't want to think about it.

It was nearly two weeks before Gray finally returned, and Natsu mostly spent them sitting in the guild hall, jittery and anxious as he kept his eyes glued to the door. He got to the guild first thing in the morning and never left until late at night, terrified that he might miss Gray if he was gone for too long. There was a very real possibility that the ice mage might only drop by to pick up more job requests, if he was really still that upset.

Every day, Natsu both dreaded and longed for his friend's arrival. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about what he should say or do, but in the end he had no idea and wouldn't have a clue until he could gauge Gray's state of mind firsthand. And although he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this whole thing, the longer Gray stayed away, the more Natsu's anger melted into a gnawing worry.

Given all that, Gray's actual return was less climactic than expected. When he walked into the guild hall and saw Natsu, he didn't start yelling or turn around and walk out or burst into tears or anything equally dramatic. In fact, it was almost as if he hadn't seen him at all, except that he clearly had. Still, his eyes seemed to pass right over Natsu, even though he smiled and greeted the others like everything was normal.

"Natsu said that you two were fighting," Erza said almost as soon as Gray had said hello and sat down. She frowned at him, but Gray just shrugged dismissively.

"We're always fighting," he replied, smiling lazily as if their fight had been perfectly ordinary, despite the fact that he couldn't stand to even look at Natsu.

"Fix it," Erza said firmly.

Gray smiled, but there was something cold and brittle underneath. "Who said anything needs fixing?"

"Gray," Natsu said, unable to contain himself any longer, "I–"

"Not now, Natsu," Gray interrupted, not even glancing at him. Instead, he grinned at the others. "Man, you guys won't _believe_ what happened when I was over in Hargeon."

He adeptly steered the conversation towards safer waters, cheerfully rambling on about the jobs he had taken over his extended absence. And when he'd finished with that and the conversation moved on to other topics, he participated with an almost normal level of cheerfulness, although he refused to directly acknowledge anything Natsu said. If anyone tried to press the point about the sudden rift between the two friends, Gray seemed to have a thousand little tricks to subtly nudge talk back to safer topics. And every time Natsu tried to address Gray, the ice mage immediately shut him down.

Natsu was stumped. He'd been prepared for Gray to be angry and maybe want to yell or punch or throw around more hurtful words. He'd been prepared for Gray to treat him with icy contempt and make barbed comments. He'd even been prepared for Gray to turn around and walk back out of the guild.

What he was not prepared for was Gray to act almost entirely normal, aside from failing to acknowledge Natsu's existence at all. He suddenly realized that the persistent worry that had been nagging at him over the past couple weeks was not at all an overreaction. He didn't know how to fix things when Gray wouldn't even talk to him.

He was still trying to figure out how to go about things when Gray stood up a few hours later and made his excuses to leave.

"Wait!" Natsu burst out when he headed for the door. "Can't we just–?"

"No," Gray said flatly, not even pausing.

Natsu clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails biting painfully into his palms as he watched Gray walk away. He couldn't just give up. There had to be something he could say to make things better.

"I'm sorry," he called after his friend, the apology tasting unfamiliar on his tongue. He wasn't used to apologizing, but maybe that's what needed to be done here and, for just this once, he'd swallow his pride if it would save this friendship. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Natsu was worried that Gray was just going to ignore this too, but he paused and stood still for several long seconds. The dragon slayer held his breath and chewed on the inside of his cheek as he waited to see what the reaction would be. Then Gray slowly turned around and fixed him with a flat look.

Natsu automatically winced. Whatever façade Gray had been maintaining for the sake of the others was gone now, no trace of cheerfulness or nonchalance remaining. His face was set in hard lines and that tightly-controlled anger was burning in his eyes again, betraying the fact that he was seconds away from losing it entirely.

"You _didn't mean it_?" he asked coldly, the barest hint of bite coloring his voice even though he was obviously trying to stay dispassionate. "What didn't you mean? Maybe you didn't mean that I killed Ur? Or that I'm an 'unlovable freak' who is so insufferable that no one can stand to be around me? Or that our entire friendship has been built on lies because you can't stand me since I'm such a horrible friend? Or maybe you just didn't mean that you _hated_ me? What, exactly, didn't you mean, Natsu?"

Natsu cringed and had a hard time meeting Gray's eyes. He knew that the things they'd said—the things _he'd_ said—were pretty terrible, but hearing them all laid out like that made them seem even worse.

"I–I–"

He hadn't meant any of that, not really, but something in Gray's eyes made it hard to choke any words out. Natsu somehow got the feeling that his friend—they were still friends, right? Couldn't they fix things and still be friends?—didn't really want an answer.

Gray drew in a deliberate breath and forced the surfacing anger back down again. The tension and coldness were still there, but when he spoke, his voice was flat and cool but not overtly furious anymore.

"You need to take a few days and spend some time really thinking about what you do and don't mean," he said, giving Natsu an indecipherable look. "When you figure out what you actually want out of this relationship and what needs to be changed, _then_ you can tell me what you didn't mean. But don't feed me pretty words until you're sure that they're actually the truth. I've had enough of lies."

He turned back around and walked away, the door slamming shut behind him as he pushed his way out of the guild. Natsu stared after him, his mind churning.

"Damn it," he groaned finally, closing his eyes and dropping his head to press his forehead against the table.

"You…You actually said all that to him?" Lucy asked finally, her voice a mixture of disbelief and horror.

Natsu wanted to deny it, wanted to protest that he really _hadn't_ meant any of it, but the fact was that he'd said it all anyway and the damage had been done. Sighing heavily, he propped his elbows on the table and lifted his head just enough to rest it on his hands.

"I screwed up the job and he was mad," he said, frowning moodily at the woodgrain of the tabletop. "I mean, everything worked out okay in the end so I didn't see what the big deal was, but yeah, I did something stupid and reckless. But he just couldn't let it go and I was getting really annoyed and when he said that I'm going to kill someone if I'm not more careful, I just blurted out something about how _my_ reckless actions haven't killed someone yet, which is better than he could say."

Natsu winced at the memory. "I think I was as shocked as he was that I said it. I really was going to apologize, but then he snapped something back about Igneel and I totally lost it. Everything went to hell after that. We both said some really horrible things, but I was the one…"

He trailed off and shrugged unhappily. Happy and the girls stared at him in various stages of shock and dismay.

"You told him that all the rest of us didn't like him?" Erza demanded finally, her eyes narrowing.

For once, Natsu couldn't be bothered to be worried about her anger. He had bigger problems right now. "He didn't believe me."

"And how would you know that?" Erza growled.

"Because he told me so."

"Just because he said it doesn't mean it was the truth," Happy said quietly.

Natsu grimaced. "I know, and it's hard to tell with him sometimes. But I don't think he'd take my word about something like that."

"That doesn't mean that you can go trying to sow doubts in his mind," Erza hissed, eyes flashing. "You had no right to say any of that, but you _especially_ had no right to try dragging us into your campaign to hurt him."

"I know." Natsu swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."

"We aren't really the ones you should be apologizing to," Lucy said, her voice a little more gentle now that the initial shock was wearing off and she could see how upset he was.

"Go find Gray and work things out," Erza added harshly.

Natsu shook his head. "Not yet."

"Natsu…"

"He told me to think things over for a few days because he isn't ready to talk to me yet. Well, he _did_ actually mean it about thinking everything over, but mostly he was warning me off of bothering him."

"It's already been nearly two weeks though…" Happy said.

"It's not surprising that he's still angry," Natsu muttered, shrugging unhappily.

"He has every right to be angry," Lucy said with a sigh, "but I'm more worried about how hurt he is. You must have really shaken him. I've never seen him look that broken before."

Natsu wanted to protest that Gray wasn't _broken_ , just angry. But he'd gotten a glimpse of what was underneath all that fury, and he wished he hadn't. He didn't want to know that he'd actually managed to hurt Gray. He hadn't meant to do that. Well, technically he had, in the heat of the moment, but that only made it worse.

"I'll talk to him later," Natsu said, subdued.

"You'd better." Erza rubbed at her face wearily. "I don't know how much of this is your fault and how much is his, but it sounds like you both owe each other some apologies. The team is not going to fall apart over this. Do you hear me, Natsu? You two need to work things out."

"Yeah."

Thankfully the others sensed Natsu's reluctance to pursue the topic and dropped it, even Erza. Their conversation was still rather subdued and occasionally they'd shoot Natsu funny looks, but they were willing to act like things were normal for the time being. It was harder for Natsu to play pretend, because he was painfully aware of how normal things weren't.

On the surface, things seemed fine. When Gray came into the guild the next day, it was almost like nothing had changed. He could laugh and joke around and even sometimes acknowledge something Natsu said, but he never quite looked the dragon slayer in the eye. Still, Natsu could see Gray's anger dying down over the next couple days, although he almost wished that it wasn't. It was hard to say what exactly was seeping in to take the place of all that resentment, but Natsu had the feeling that it was something tired and sad.

Not that it was super obvious since Gray was putting on a good show like nothing was wrong, but if Natsu looked carefully enough then he could see it. He didn't like it. At least when Gray was angry, it was a little less obvious how hurt he was.

A couple days after the confrontation in the guild hall, Gray mumbled some excuse about having something to do and left right in the middle of the afternoon. Natsu stared after his retreating form, eyes narrowed in thought. This might be his chance to finally fix things, now that Gray wasn't as furious. Of course, his anger might very well flare up again as soon as Natsu approached him, but it was a risk he'd have to take.

Standing up, Natsu headed for the door.

"Natsu?" Happy asked. "What are you doing?"

Natsu turned and blinked at the Exceed uncomprehendingly. Oh yeah, he'd actually been in the middle of a conversation before getting distracted.

"I'm going to try talking with Gray."

"You think he's ready to talk now?" Lucy asked doubtfully.

Natsu shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe not. But something about his attitude makes me think he might be."

"Then go," Erza said impatiently. Then she sighed and offered him a wan smile. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Natsu would definitely need it.

He wasted no time leaving the guild behind, although he had to admit that once he picked up Gray's scent trail, he followed it more slowly than he could have. It was hard not to try stalling when he was so nervous about what might happen next. He'd spent the last couple days trying to figure out how he should approach this problem and what he should say, but he still didn't know. He'd never been good with words, and there had never been such a big rift between him and his friend before.

But it had to be done, so Natsu followed the trail all the way down to the river. His heart sank as he spotted Gray sitting near the bank, in exactly the same spot where the two of them used to fight all the time as kids. Natsu highly doubted that it was a coincidence.

He hesitated, but then took a deep breath and walked over. When Gray remained staring blankly out at the river, his chin resting on his knees as he hugged his legs to his chest, Natsu carefully dropped down onto the grass beside him. The two sat in silence for several long seconds before Natsu took another steadying breath.

"Gray, I–"

"Don't," Gray interrupted quietly.

Natsu immediately broke off and stared at his friend apprehensively. With how Gray had been preempting any attempts Natsu made to talk to him about anything serious, maybe this shouldn't be surprising. What _was_ surprising was that Gray didn't sound angry about it, just tired.

"Don't what?" Natsu asked, clearing his suddenly dry throat.

Gray stayed silent for a moment. "Don't apologize."

"Uh…" Natsu blinked at him uncertainly. Don't apologize? Shouldn't Gray want an apology? If Natsu wasn't supposed to apologize then what was he supposed to do to fix things?

"Look, I started it," Gray said in a low voice, still not looking at Natsu. "I should've just dropped the issue instead of pressing it. And what I said about Igneel abandoning you… It was out of line. You wouldn't have said any of the other stuff if I hadn't said that."

Natsu gaped at him in disbelief. "You… _What_?"

"I didn't mean it," Gray mumbled, unhooking one arm from around his knees so that he could pick at the grass moodily. "What I said about Igneel. I'm sorry."

Natsu's mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds. Yeah, Gray had said some pretty cruel things too, but only after Natsu had said something about Ur. The stuff before that wasn't anything that the two of them hadn't thrown back and forth at each other in the past. And after how furious Gray had been… It was hard to believe that he was the one apologizing now.

Natsu sighed, wondering how he was supposed to handle this situation. Trying to figure out how to handle an angry Gray was hard enough, but Natsu was at a total loss as to what he was supposed to do with this suddenly incomprehensible version of his friend.

"I know you didn't mean it," he said carefully. "I remember all those times you came with me to look for him on wild goose chases when we were kids. And anyway, you never would have said that if I hadn't been an asshole about Ur. And God, I'm sorry. I still can't believe I said that. I really, really didn't mean that."

Gray tilted his head a little, looking away from the river to blink down at the grass at his feet. "It's okay. It's not like it's anything I've never heard or thought before. I just wasn't expecting to hear it from _you_. And it still didn't give me the right to say anything about Igneel, or to say any of those other things I didn't entirely mean."

"No, it's not okay," Natsu disagreed, wincing. "I knew it wasn't okay. I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it. I was actually going to apologize but…then I went crazy and started spouting off all sorts of stupid shit."

Gray shrugged and ripped another blade of grass out of the ground. "Maybe some of those things needed to be said."

Natsu sucked in a breath, eyes widening. He was suddenly afraid that he'd done even more damage than he'd thought.

"You were right about me being a terrible actor," he said hurriedly, wringing his hands together. "If I really thought that way then I couldn't have hidden it from you for years. You have to know I didn't mean any of it."

"Even so, that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to some of it," Gray said with a sigh. "As shown by my less than admirable behavior during and after our fight. It gave me something to think about, anyway."

"You… _Fuck_. It's bad enough that I said it and didn't mean it. Don't you dare start looking for ways to make it true. It was all lies. I was angry and I wanted to hurt you and I took advantage of every weak point I knew you had."

Gray just shrugged again. "The best lies have a grain of truth," he said wearily. "Look, all I'm saying is that maybe I shouldn't have been so mad at you."

This was definitely worse than Natsu had thought, and it took him a moment to come up with something to say to that.

"What's true," he said finally, "is that sometimes you can be pretty annoying, and you _do_ drive me up the wall half the time. On the other hand, I'm also pretty annoying, and I drive you crazy too. But we've managed to put up with each other this far, haven't we? If we can be that annoying but still be friends at the end of the day, we must have some redeeming qualities.

"And I hope you aren't questioning what everyone else thinks of you now, because Erza will be furious. She almost ripped my head off when she found out that I told you none of them liked you. You have to know that they love you as much as you love them."

Natsu sighed and looked away. "And we wouldn't be friends if I didn't want to be friends with you. I–" He swallowed and tried again. "I don't hate you. I really don't. I'm sorry I said that. I've always…I've always kind of seen you as my best friend, to be honest."

The silence dragged on and on, and it took a while for Natsu to finally work up the nerve to look back at his friend. Gray was actually looking at him now, watching him with unreadable eyes. They stared at each other for a few seconds.

"The point was that I didn't want to watch you die," Gray said. "And I didn't want to watch you accidentally get someone else hurt either, because _yes_ , I've done it and lived with the consequences, and I don't want to see you go through the same thing. You're so reckless sometimes that I feel like I have to worry about the consequences for you since you don't.

"That's what I was trying to say, although I did a pretty poor job of it since I was angry. And I was angry because I was scared, because I was afraid you were going to get yourself killed over something stupid and because I knew that you didn't think it was a big deal so you'd do the same exact thing next time around. _That_ was the point you weren't getting."

Natsu stared. That…actually made everything seem even worse. Maybe Gray hadn't expressed himself in the best way, but he'd meant well and had only gotten hurt for his efforts. Of course their worst-ever fight was all over a misunderstanding. Well. That sucked. Too bad Natsu hadn't figured this out sooner.

"Yeah," he mumbled around the lump in his throat. "I think I get it."

"Good." Gray looked away again, returning his gaze to the river.

Natsu gnawed on his lip and studied his friend, noting the stiffness and tension in the way Gray held himself. Before, he had assumed that it was just because Gray was angry and trying to keep his fury under control, but he got the feeling that anger wasn't the only thing he was trying to tamp down.

Natsu started to lean forward, paused uncertainly, and then shrugged and wrapped his arms around Gray, who immediately stiffened.

"What–?"

"I'm sorry," Natsu said quietly, tightening his grip. "I know it hurts. You don't have to hide it."

Gray stayed frozen for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped a little as some of the tension drained away and he leaned against Natsu, resting his head against the dragon slayer's chest. Tilting his head downwards so that his face was hidden, he let out a shaky sigh and swiped the back of his hand across his eyes.

"Yeah, you can be kind of annoying sometimes," Natsu said. "But you're also really funny and you put up with all my dumb antics and you're a lot of fun to fight with and you make a good rival, and you're really strong and loyal and would stand by us till the end. I guess it would be kind of stupid to not want to be your friend, huh? I don't think I could hate you even if I wanted to, and I've always been really grateful to count you as a friend.

"So, what do you say? Friends?"

Gray looked up, his dark eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Friends," he agreed in a small voice.

Natsu smiled. "I bet Erza's going to want us to go have another 'bonding experience' since we messed up the other one so badly. What do you say we go take another job and see if we can't do it better this time?"

That managed to pull a half-smile out of Gray. "I suppose we could go see if we can find a job that you can't manage to screw up."

"Unlikely," Natsu said with a laugh. "I take great pride in being able to screw up everything." Then the context of the situation hit him and he winced. "Well, maybe not _everything_. There are a few things that I'd rather not mess up."

Gray studied him for a second and then nodded. "Agreed."

He sighed and shifted away from Natsu so that he could push himself to his feet and brush the grass off his pants. Natsu stood as well, eyeing him uncertainly.

"Well, we might as well get going," Gray said, turning away to head up the bank.

Natsu followed, studying him carefully. There was still some tension in his posture, some hint of sadness and weariness lingering in his eyes, possibly some anger still lurking around somewhere. But at least he seemed to be willing to give Natsu another chance now.

Natsu supposed that they'd just have to take everything one step at a time and see where things went from here. He wasn't sure how much would just go back to normal and how much they'd have to work at fixing. They'd crossed some lines that now needed to be redrawn and dealt wounds that needed to be bandaged up. It was kind of a daunting task—Natsu had always been a lot better at destroying things than building them back up.

As if sensing his worry, Gray glanced over and studied him with unreadable eyes.

"Funny thing," he said, quirking an eyebrow. "I always kind of considered you to be my best friend too. Who would've thought it?"

Natsu smiled, and one corner of Gray's mouth twitched upwards in response. Breathing a sigh of relief, Natsu let himself settle back into the comfort and familiarity of a well-worn and much-loved friendship. Yeah, there were still things that needed to be fixed and maybe it wouldn't be that easy, but in the end, this was still a friendship worth fighting for.

* * *

 **emmhoshi: Aw, but your linguistic inventions are such fun ;) To be honest, I have a few different versions and extensions of this piece in my head, and in a couple of them Gray _does_ walk away as soon as Ur is brought up. Your fast and furious self is awakened XD Cute. Yeah, it kind of seems like nothing is as dramatic as I expect it to be in real life? I have this habit of planning out whole confrontations in my head and coming up with worst-case scenarios, and then I meet up with the person I'm fighting with and it's...not at all dramatic lol I think a lot of people assume that I have this super rosy view of Gray and Natsu's friendship where they're always talking and helping each other through tough times instead of the canon presentation where they're always fighting and almost never directly acknowledge that they're close. I'm actually somewhere in between, where I keep the canon side but give it a lot more depth. It's just that I write about the out-of-the-ordinary experiences where they have to talk instead of fight, rather than the more ordinary day-to-day side of things XD **


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